Coventry, Thomas Coventry, 1st Baron

▪ English lawyer

born 1578, Croome, Worcestershire, England

died January 14, 1640, London

      English lawyer, lord keeper of England from 1625 to 1640.

      Coventry was educated at Balliol College, Oxford, and at the Inner Temple, where he fell under the influence of the jurist Sir Edward Coke. Despite Francis Bacon's opposition, Coventry became recorder of London in 1616 and solicitor general in 1617. Under the patronage of George Villiars, 1st Duke of Buckingham (whose ambition to obtain the office of lord high constable Coventry was later to oppose), he began a rapid rise: he was appointed attorney general in 1621 and lord keeper in 1625.

      Coventry, who was raised to the peerage in 1628, was loyal to Charles I and a firm supporter of the royal prerogative on such issues as ship money. He was, however, more of a lawyer than a politican, and he had but little influence in the inner councils of state. By nature a moderate man, he sought to mitigate the severity of the Star Chamber (Star Chamber, Court of) sentences and to prevent many of the court's illegal practices, such as the hanging of men for resisting press gangs. He cannot be wholly exculpated of responsibility for the excesses of the Star Chamber, but he was respected by the majority of his contemporaries and, as lord keeper, tried to remove many of the abuses of the court of chancery.

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